Year in review: Woodland returns to PGA Tour prominence

Topekan's late-season surge is C-J's No. 9 story of the year

For the bulk of the 2013 PGA Tour season, Gary Woodland seemed stuck in idle.

The Topeka native certainly wasn’t going backwards. Despite continuing to recover from a wrist injury that sabotaged his 2012 season, Woodland shook off a rough start and made the cut in 13 of 14 events from March to July — the lone miss coming when he withdrew from the Travelers Championship with a balky back.

But he also wasn’t gaining any traction. Despite making those cuts, Woodland didn’t have much to show for it with just three top-20 finishes and zero top 10s.

Thanks to a series of changes, however, Woodland found the accelerator late. Not only did he record his second career PGA victory when he won the Reno-Tahoe Open, Woodland raced up the FedEx Cup standings, securing a spot in the season-ending Tour Championship, which qualified him for all four majors in 2014.

In the process, Woodland also floored the skeptics who wondered if he’d ever recapture the form that made him a breakthrough sensation on the tour in 2011.

“I wouldn’t allow myself to think I couldn’t get through it,” Woodland said of his injury and ensuing changes. “I kept telling myself once I got healthy, everything would come back. It took a lot longer to see the results because I’ve been healthy since March.”

Getting healthy was one thing, and Woodland finally felt close to 100 percent midway through 2013. The biggest keys to Woodland’s late-season surge, however, were additions and subtractions he made to his game and personal life throughout the year that finally fell into place.

■ Instead of working directly with noted swing coach Butch Harmon, Woodland shifted to his son, Claude. The two returned to his natural swing, which eased some of the pressure he’d been putting on his injured wrist.

■ Before that switch, Woodland had already turned to Northwestern coach Pat Goss to work on his short game. The improvements in that area directly led to his win at Reno when he holed a wedge on No. 14 during Sunday’s final round, salvaging birdie when a bogey seemed almost imminent.

■ Perhaps the biggest addition was employing the services of Julie Elion, a noted sports psychologist who has worked with several professional athletes, including Phil Mickelson. The performance coach addressed numerous issues Woodland was dealing with, forcing him to let go of some of his mental baggage, namely his strained relationship with former coach Randy Smith.

“I was just holding on to a lot,’’ Woodland said. “Randy Smith and I had gone different directions and he was like a mentor in my life. He was like a second father to me. It was more than golf when Randy and I separated. That was a hard situation for me.

“Everything was easier to do once I got everything out in the open and truly believed that I’d put in the work. I worked my butt off to get in this position and put myself in the best position to be successful. Now, nothing else matters.”

When it mattered most in 2013, Woodland rose to the occasion. The Reno victory secured his tour card for the next two years, but Woodland still had strides to make to secure his spot in the 2014 majors.

After a tough go at the PGA Championship, Woodland nearly claimed his second victory of the year when he finished runner-up at The Barclays, the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He added two more top-25 finishes in the playoffs, locking up his majors berth.

And he wasn’t done. Thanks to the newly modified Tour schedule, Woodland got a jump start on the 2014 season with another runner-up finish at the CIMB Classic in late October, losing in a playoff to Ryan Moore for the title.

“I feel like I’m a lot better player than I was in 2011, even though I had a great year,” Woodland said. “I’m a better golfer, a more complete player.”